That morning, by seven o’clock, I’d already burned a pan of toast, signed three permission slips, found Sophie’s lost shoe in the freezer, and reminded Jason and Evan that a spoon is not a weapon. I’m now forty-four, and for the past seven years, I’ve raised ten children who aren’t biologically mine. It’s loud, chaotic, exhausting, yet somehow it remains the center of my life.
Calla should have been my wife. Back then, she was the heart of the house, the one who could calm a child with a song and end a fight with a single look. But seven years earlier, the police had found her car near the river, the driver’s door open, her purse still inside, and her coat leaning against the railing above the water. Hours later, they found Mara, then eleven, barefoot on the side of the road, cold and unable to speak. When she finally spoke, weeks later, she kept repeating that she didn’t remember anything. There was no body, but after ten days of searching, we buried Calla anyway. And I found myself having to care for ten children who suddenly needed me in ways I never imagined.
